


we will call this place our home

by Novaviis



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Abandonment Issues, Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Eventual Smut, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, Home, M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War, Returning Home, Romance, Romantic Fluff, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-26
Updated: 2018-10-08
Packaged: 2019-05-28 17:24:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15054152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Novaviis/pseuds/Novaviis
Summary: As the universe settles down, Keith and Shiro find the strength to do the same. Their little shack in the desert isn't what anyone would call a real house, but with a little work, they make it home.It’s daunting – but they can have this. They’re allowed to have this damn it, they deserve it more than anything. Keith reaches into his back pocket and fishes out one of two keys to the new locks on the door. He guides Shiro’s hand off of his back and holds it between them, pressing the key into his palm and folding his fingers around it. Keith holds Shiro’s closed fist over his heart, and holds his gaze with his own. “Stay.”Shiro exhales. Reality isn’t shattering around them just yet. It’s a little hard to believe. “Okay.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A little break from the usual. I wish I was sorry, but a bitch needs to branch out sometimes. This is shamelessly domestic and soft and I'm super duper excited to be putting out my first piece for VLD. Enjoy!

The shack rises up out of the desert. Keith blinks it out of his vision like a mirage at first. As the hover bike glides nearer, dust flies up in his wake, and the shack is still there. It stands like stone against the outcroppings of jagged cliffs in the distance. Keith eases on the brake, sliding sideways over the dry, cracked earth as he pulls up just outside the property. He remembers that a fence used to surround it, the white picket kind you only find in postcards and storybooks. He remembers that beside the shack, there used to be a little blue farmhouse, and a tire swing hanging from the Pinyon Pine in the front yard. Keith blinks the memories away, another mirage shimmering in the desert heat.

Parking the bike, Keith dismounts and wipes his forearm over his forehead. His skin is coated in sweat and a thin layer of dirt that smears across his face when he tries to rub it away. Pulling a rucksack out of a compartment on the side of the bike, Keith pulls out a bottle of water. He chugs down a few luke-warm gulps and squirts some into his palm, rubbing it over his face and through his hair.

 _Don’t waste your water_ , he can almost hear his Dad admonishing him – but he’s got another couple of bottles stored in his bag, and his Dad is dead and not the boss of him. Keith takes another swing as he breaches the top of the low sand dune. The full front of the shack comes into view.

Keith blinks again. His eyelashes are heavy with sweat, and the figure sitting on the porch of the shack is definitely _not_ a mirage, as his heat-fried brain tells him. Shiro is dressed in fatigues; military issue pants, and a tight fitting grey t-shirt with the orange logo of the Garrison on the front. The right sleeve is synched closed with a pin at the bottom of his bicep. His shirt is already soaked with sweat stains, though Keith isn’t much better off. He’s sitting on the edge of the porch, feet kicked out the dirt, while he leans back with his left hand braced on the wood platform. Shiro looks up when Keith descends the hill, and the intensity of his whitened hair nearly reflects the sun into Keith’s eyes.

Shiro smiles. Keith stops. It’s that simple.

With a low grunt, Shiro uses his left arm to push himself upright and slowly stand. His balance is still off, Keith notices. He can see it in the way he has to compensate for his right side, swaying a bit on his feet before steadying himself. His smile never falters as he walks over to Keith.

“Thought I might find you out here,” Shiro grins.

Keith’s eyes narrow a bit, but there’s a knowing smirk tugging at the corner of his lips as he meets Shiro halfway. "I didn’t even know I’d come out here. Just went for a ride,” he says.

“To avoid that meeting with the Garrison Board,” Shiro points out.

Keith feigns innocence. “Was that today?”

“Yes.”

“Damn shame,” Keith shrugs.

A flash of blue light bursts to their left. The wolf-creature bounds across the short distance toward them, kicking up dirt as its massive paws scrape against the dry ground. The way Shiro jumps slightly at the sudden intrusion doesn’t go unnoticed, but Keith’s focus is quickly occupied by trying to wrestle the beast off himself. “Ko- hey, Kosmo!” he tries to sound firm through the onslaught of licks, and fails spectacularly as he starts laughing. “Kosmo! Down!”

He manages to push the wolf off with some effort, wiping the dirty paw prints off his shirt. Kosmo curls around Keith, pushing his head against his legs and flicking his tail around him. The behavior is oddly cat-like. Keith can’t help but laugh at Shiro’s confused expression. Still, there’s a tension lingering in his shoulders, a sense of standing on a dull knife’s edge that has Keith a little concerned. Before he can ask Shiro is he’s okay, Kosmo seems to pick up on this as well. He trots over to Shiro, notably slower, and bows his head next to his hand. He doesn’t move to touch him just yet, just waits patiently for Shiro to make the first move. Finally, Shiro closes the last inch of distance. Kosmo instantly pushes his head into his hand, turning his jaw up so Shiro can scratch under his chin. The sound he makes is somewhere between a low, canine whine and a trill. It looks a bit like an apology.

Shiro’s shoulders drop as he continues to pet the odd thing, laughing under his breath as he glances up at Keith. Keith crosses his arms over his chest, mirroring the gentle smile. “So,” Keith starts as he jerks his head toward the porch. “How’d you get out here? I’m assuming you didn’t walk all the way from the Garrison.”

They step up onto the porch, the wood creaking under their weight. Shiro takes a seat on the bench, and Kosmo drops at his feet, rolling onto his side. “There was a small convoy going out into town,” he explains as he settles back. “I hitched a ride with them after the meeting. They were driving by here about half a mile out, so I had them drop me off and I walked the rest of the way.”

Keith shakes his head as he leans back against the wall. As he settles down, Shiro wipes his hair off his glistening forehead. Keith wordlessly reaches into his bag and pulls out a water bottle. He doesn’t think anything of it when he tosses the bottle to Shiro, until the moment it leaves his hand and the guilt slams into him. He cringes, waits for the moment that Shiro is unable to catch it without his right hand so he can apologise, but it never comes. Shiro manages to twist his left arm enough to catch it just before it hits the ground. His grin is boyish and spilling with pride at the save as he looks up at Keith. Keith can’t quite keep the sheepish guilt out of his smile, but he tries. Shiro holds the bottle between his thighs and uses his left hand to twist the cap off.

Keith is a little too desperate to keep the conversation going naturally. “You didn’t answer me before,” he says. “How’d you know I would come out here?”

Shiro shrugs as he raises the bottle to his lips and takes few long gulps. Water drips down from the corner of his mouth, and Keith has to purposely avert his gaze from the practically _obscene_ way his Adam’s Apple bobs in his throat. Shiro uses the back of his arm to wipe his mouth when he pulls the bottle away. “I just kind of knew,” he answers honestly. “I didn’t think about it too much.”

“And what if I never came out here?” Keith presses. “Or I took hours to come out here and you were left stranded?”

Shiro only smiles knowingly. “I wouldn’t have minded waiting.”

The statement, simple as it is, tightens something Keith’s throat. He pulls his own waterbottle out of his bag and takes a short swing, finding with some disappointment that it doesn’t do any good. “Well,” Keith says as he fidgets with putting the cap back on. He clears his throat and looks back at Shiro with a bare smile. “You could’ve at least waited inside.” Pushing off the wall, Keith turned toward the door of the shack, hand reaching toward the doorknob.

A hand is on his wrist before he can get a grip on it. Keith looks up in mild surprise to find that Shiro had shot up from his seat, spilling a bit of water on an unimpressed Kosmo in the process. Shiro’s face is entirely apologetic, though Keith doesn’t understand way. “That’s… actually why I wanted to find you out here,” he explains, his fingers light around Keith’s wrist. “Iverson mentioned it to me… when the Garrison was looking for us after we left in the Blue Lion, they tracked us out here. Something about seizing evidence, I guess, and…”

Keith’s brows furrow, tearing his gaze from Shiro to look at the door. Without needing to be told, Shiro lets his hand drop from Keith’s wrist. Keith hesitates over the doorknob before finally wrapping his fingers around it and twisting. He pushes it open slowly…

And the door falls away entirely from the frame. The knob slips out of Keith’s loose grasp, falling inward with a dull crash and a cloud of dust. Keith lets his arm fall limp against his side. “…Those fuckers…”

“Hey now,” Shiro tries to placate him as he follows Keith inside. “Given the circumstances of our disappearance, it’s understandable that they’d be… cautious.”

The shack had been gutted inside. Simple pieces of furniture remained, like the futon under the window, the coffee table, and the book shelves. Everything else was just – gone. The books, his Dad’s old radio equipment, the posters, the board he’d used to track his search for the Blue Lion – all of it. Keith treads lightly into the room, feeling something cold and awful settle into his gut. It’s an empty feeling, like any evidence he’d ever existed has been stomped out like a cigarette under a heavy boot. Keith takes in a slow breath, lungs thick with dust.

The rustle of paper catches his attention. Keith looks over his shoulder to find Shiro at the empty cork board – near empty, actually. Keith hadn’t really noticed when he’d come in, but a few slips of paper had been left behind, deemed unimportant by the Garrison. Keith’s chest flushes with heat as he remembers when he’d written on those papers on long, sleepless nights when he’d believes that the only other person who gave a damn about him had been claimed by the vacuum of space. They were embarrassingly poetic, but Keith never had the heart to throw them away. He’d been hurting.

Feeling Keith’s gaze on him, Shiro turns away from the board, faint colour left on his cheeks. He clears his throat. “I can talk to Iverson, arrange to have everything brought back. Now that everything’s cleared up, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

Keith nods as he continues to walk the perimeter of the shack. He’s half tempted to shoo Kosmo off the futon when he sees him jump onto the cushion and curl up, but he lets him have his way (just this time). Finally, he stops next to Shiro at the board, looking anywhere but at the notes. He can still catch a few water marks where the ink has run and rendered the writing almost illegible. “I want to fix this place up,” he says finally as he turns to take in the whole room. “Make it livable again. I’m already getting stir crazy, staying at the Garrison. This… it’ll be better.”

Shiro has to angle his body just to reach Keith’s shoulder with his left arm, but he manages with a heavy hand and a light squeeze. “Keith… are you sure? It’s a lot of work, and our rooms at the Garrison are already set up.”

“I’ve never been one to do anything the easy way,” Keith points out with a wry smile. “Besides, I’m closer to the Lions out here,” he shrugs. They’d left them hidden out in the canyon for the time being, shields activated in waiting for their Paladins’ return. When Shiro doesn’t seem convinced of this decision, Keith reaches up and lays his hand over his shoulder. “It means a lot to me, Shiro…”

It doesn’t take much for Shiro to give in. Keith can see it in the tight line of his brows that he’d prefer to keep Keith close by, but there’s no argument left in him. “Alright,” Shiro sighs. “Then I’ll get everything back out here in the morning. Just… stay at the Garrison for now? At least until we can get it set up,” he adds with a tense laugh. It’s a poor attempt at masking his discomfort, but Keith appreciates it.

“Sure thing.”

 

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

 

The following morning is hot before the sun’s climbed halfway into the sky. Keith leaves early, knows from his childhood in the desert that it’s best to get the day’s work done before the sun breaks over the flat horizon. He takes his bike out across the plains when the sky is still stained indigo with night, and sunlight is just a coming promise. Stars are still peeking through the thin morning veil by the time he makes it to town. From the edge of town, he can see the Garrison with its gleaming buildings and sprawling concrete in one direction, and the faint outline of his shack in the other, the three point triangle that encompassed his entire life on Earth.

He doesn’t stay long, just picks up what he needs and loads it into the back of his bike. He’ll have to make trips, can’t bear too much extra weight, so he just get the essentials for the time being. If the Garrison didn’t completely ruin his belongings, he should be able to set up comfortably again.

The only place he stalls is outside the liquor store. He pulls his wallet out of his back pocket, glances down at the contents, with an amused smirk, and goes inside. He’s only inside for a few minutes, but by the time he comes back out, the sun has breached the distant red cliffs. He takes off into the red morning across the desert.

When he makes it to the shack, Shiro is already there. He’s just stepping out of a Garrison truck when Keith pulls up, a clunky all-terrain vehicle with an engine like a demonic growl. Shiro reaches into the driver’s seat and shuts it off as Keith hauls off his bike and walks over. Kosmo is in the passenger side, leaning out the window and barking to Keith as he approaches – a dog is still a dog, he guesses, no matter which edge of the universe it comes from.

Shiro pats the back of the truck, the top covered in canvas to protect its cargo from the sand and sun. “This should be everything,” he says. “If you notice anything missing, let me know.”

Rounding the back of the trunk, Keith pulls open the tailgate and crawls inside. “This looks like everything,” he calls back as he drags a box out. It’s nothing short of a sauna inside, and he’s already sweating by the time he pulls the first three boxes out. With one leg dangling off the side of the tailgate, Keith pushes his hair back, and finds that it isn’t enough. He pulls a hair elastic from his back pocket. “Mind giving me a hand bringing this inside?”

“Sure,” Shiro replies with a shit-eating grin, “but only one.”

Keith doesn’t even make it to guilt this time. He pulls the elastic back on his thumb and flings it at Shiro’s face in retaliation for being a smartass.

Unloading the truck is slow going, even slower as the sun continues to climb higher in the sky, but they manage. The heat isn’t so bad between the shack and the truck. It’s leaning into the back of the vehicle, still hot from the engine and stale under the canvas tarp, that’s the worst of it. Shiro takes one box at a time, whatever he can tuck under his arm and balance against his side, and Keith does the same. He says, when Shiro teases him about “slacking” that it’s best to go slow and steady in this heat, but they both know. Shiro doesn’t say so, but he appreciates.

Within an hour, they have everything unloaded and mostly unpacked. There’s no room to leave boxes inside, so they take everything out as it comes in and put it away, shoving the cardboard into the back of the truck. Once everything is relatively back in its places, with the exclusion of the contents of his corkboard, they make one last trip out to the hover bike. Towing plastic bags of food and supplies, a paint can, and a brown paper bag that Keith refused to let Shiro peak into, they finally settle everything inside.

The first thing Keith does is set up the old solar-powered generator out back, getting a thumb up from Shiro through the window when the lights flicker on inside. They unload the meager groceries Keith picked up, just enough to laugh a couple days, into the mini fridge in the modest kitchen.

“I’m gonna work on getting the door fixed, first,” Keith says as he nudges the fridge door shut with his foot. “Replace the locks, too. You got my Dad’s toolbox, right?”

“Yeah, I dropped it over here,” Shiro crosses the room to the corner, where he’d put the rusted tin box between the futon and the adjacent wall. He picks it up with a grunt and carries it over to the door, watching as Keith props the broken door against the wall just outside. His gaze drifts out to the endless plain of red earth, shifting and melting at the edges in the scorching noon sun. “Well, I’d stay and help, but…” Shiro pauses, stumbles over his words. His hesitance makes Keith pause, looking up at Shiro as he slowly lowers the screwdriver in his hand from the detached door hinge. Shiro clears his throat. “I’d best be out of your way.”

Keith catches on easily. His shoulders drop, a cold twist in his stomach screeching for him to reach out to Shiro. He pockets the screwdriver and steps back from the doorframe. “Do you want to help?”

Shiro shifts on his feet. “Yeah, but-“

“No,” Keith shakes his head. The twist in his gut tightens, screams louder. He listens. Placing his hand on Shiro’s right shoulder, like he’s done to him so many times in the past, Keith fixes him with a steady gaze. “Shiro, do you _want_ to help?”

Shiro seems to relax at the touch, even if only a fraction. There’s still a tension in his shoulders, a rigidness in his back even as his neck droops and his chest heaves with a long sigh. “Yes,” he answers.

“Okay then,” Keith nods. With a tight squeeze, Keith steps past Shiro in the doorway and starts rooting through the bags. He pulls out a paint can, a roller, and a tray. Cracking open the can, he pours a good amount of light cream paint into the tray and sets it in the middle of the room. “Don’t worry about that wall,” he points to the wall where the paper was crack and peeling away from the brick to expose old fire damage, “I’m gonna pull the wallpaper off anyway. The rest of the walls could use a go-over.”

Shiro picks up the paint roller, turning it over in his hand. Keith’s soft smile comes into focus over the edge of the cotton roll, and Shiro lowers it to smile back at him. He brings his hand up, paint roller and all, into a mock salute. “Yes, sir.”

Keith rolls his eyes at the comment and nudges Shiro out of his way with his shoulder so he can squeeze between him and the coffee table. At the doorway, he fishes around in his pocket for the hair elastic he’d weaponized against Shiro earlier. He hold it between his teeth for a moment as he gathers his hair in a fist off the nape of his neck. He pulls the elastic around it in a loose sort of bun, with a few loose strands falling over his forehead and the side of his face. He shoots Shiro a smirk, a little thrilled to find more than just the desert heat colouring Shiro’s face. “Get to work, then.”

They go steadily. The day draws on, and they work in comfortable silence and bouts of easy conversation. They don’t work together, per say, just within each other’s’ orbit. Keith focuses on replacing the hinges and handle of the door, carefully fixing it back in place and making sure that it won’t knock into anything when it opens. With the new doorknob comes a new lock, and an extra dead bolt for good measure. He carves out the space he needs for it in the door frame, using his old bandana to cover his nose and mouth as he works the wood with his power tools. He catches Shiro watching more than once. He doesn’t mind.

They take a break a few hours in for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and bottled water, sitting on the creaking futon with one ancient fan working on overdrive to cool them down. Shiro swipes a finger in the peanut butter jar despite Keith’s protests and lets Kosmo lick it off. They fall into hysterics at his look of confusion when he can’t get it off the roof of his mouth – again, a space dog is still a dog.

Shiro, for his part, doesn’t take too long to finish painting. The shack isn’t that big to begin with, and although it takes some maneuvering to get the furniture out of the way, he manages. He only stops when he gets to the doorway, where Keith is cursing under his breath as he tries to get the damn _brackets to fucking line up_. Scratched into the wall beside the threshold is a series of pencil markings climbing up against the wood panel. At the top of the column “Keith” is written in a sharp scrawl. Every line beneath it is labelled with months and years, starting when Keith was about a year and a half. They end when he’s twelve.

Keith looks over when he notices that Shiro has stopped, eyes catching the pencil marks. He smiles a bit to himself. “I was always the short kid.”

Shiro nods, but doesn’t start painting right away. He lowers the paint roller into the tray before crossing back over to the doorway. He plucks the pencil that Keith had tucked behind his ear for marking the door jam. Before Keith can ask what he’s doing, Shiro is tugging him to his feet and forcing him to stand against the wall.

Keith crosses his arms over his chest, but doesn’t fight it. “I’m a little old for this, don’t you think?”

“Shut up and stand straight,” Shiro retorts without missing a beat. Keith rolls his eyes, struggling not to laugh as Shiro marks his height on the wall with the date. “There,” he says as he sticks the pencil back behind Keith’s ear. “Finished.”

Keith blinks as Shiro pulls his hand away from his ear, the light graze of his fingers against the side of his face as he withdraws sends a hot rush down the side of his neck. He tears his gaze away from Shiro’s fond stare to the marks on the wall. A slow burning smile rises to his lips. “You can leave that part,” he says, dragging his fingers over the lower marking that barely reach his hip as he crouches down again to work on the door.

They get back to work. Shiro manages to do two coats before deciding the job is done. With that out of the way, he finishes up unpacking Keith’s things. He sets the books on the shelves, and pins up the few old pictures that Keith has; him and his dad in front of the house that used to stand beside the shack, at the Fire hall in town, Keith smiling at the camera from the Foster home without half the life in his eyes he had in the earlier photos, Keith and Shiro on the roof top of the Garrison, the two of them right before the Kerberos Launch. Shiro feels strangely like he’s looking at two entirely different people in those last photos, a heavy reminder of how the past few years had changed them both.

By the time they’re finished, the sun has made its arch across the sky and is sinking down in the west. Far from night, but the desert is cooling off, and cicadas in the tree outside are the only sound across the empty plain. The lights of the distant town and the Garrison are slowly blinking to life just as the stars begin to reappear.

Shiro is sitting on the edge of the porch, with Kosmo curled up at his back. He cards his fingers through his fur, the lighter streaks of it turning luminescent in the coming twilight. Looking behind him when he hears the whine of the new door hinges, he find Keith stepping outside with a small pitcher and two glasses clinking with ice cubes. Keith sits down beside Shiro, setting the pitcher and cups down between them. “What’s this?” he asks.

“Sweet Tea and Bourbon,” Keith answers as he pours the amber mixture over the ice. He passes the first glass over to Shiro.

Shiro takes it with a raised brow. “And how the hell did you get bourbon?”

Keith grins at him, entirely unapologetic. “I had a fake I.D. when I was living out here,” he replies. “Ironically, it’s closer to my actual age than my real I.D. now. I doubt the whole “spent two years on a Space Whale in a time rift” thing would go over well. The cashier at the liquor store didn’t even – oh, don’t look at me like that, it’s not like I was going on benders every night,” he cuts off when Shiro attempts to look unimpressed. He nudges Shiro in the ribs before pouring himself a glass. “It’s probably the only ‘normal teenager’ thing I ever did back then.”

“You say that like I should be relieved,” Shiro finally gives in with a light chuckle. Regardless, he takes a sip, brows raising in pleasant surprise. “This is really good.”

“It was my Dad’s recipe,” Keith says as he sips from his own glass. “He’d make the sweet tea by itself all the time and add the bourbon to his glass. We’d sit out on the porch and drink it on nights like this, and sometimes he’d let me try a sip of his,” his laughter at the memory is subdued, muted by the wetness to his eyes. “It was just the two of us, y’know? But some nights he’d have his buddies from the Fire Department over, and they’d join us out here and smoke a few cigars and share stories. It was… it was real nice.”

Shiro sets his glass down. The gentle clink of glass against ice as it touches the wood is soft under the chorus of night bugs. He lays his hand on Keith’s shoulder – but it’s the far side, and his arm wraps around him from behind. Keith leans into it without hesitation. When Shiro speaks, his eyes are earnest, brows pulled at the centre. “Keith, are you really sure about staying out here? You’ve… got a lot of memories here, and I know they’re not all good.”

Keith closes his eyes. He inhales through his nose and out through his mouth, a breath that fills his entire body. When he opens his eyes again, his gaze is fixated on the sky, where the brightest stars and planets are beaming through the violet and peach of the evening. “I understand my m-… I understand Krolia’s decision to stay with the Blades rather than coming to live with us on Earth,” he starts off, breaks, and starts again slowly. “There’s just _too much_ here for her. Even visiting his gave last week… it was hard for her. And all things considered, she wasn’t on Earth for very long. Thing is… this is the closest thing to home I’ve ever really had. I know it’s not really much, but the house is gone. So yeah, I’ve got a lot of heavy memories here, but they’re all I’ve got left.”

Shiro listens intently, absently smoothing his thumb back and forth over Keith’s shoulder. “I just want you to be happy, Keith. As long as this is where you feel the most safe and comfortable, I’ll paint as many walls as you need,” he adds with a light smile.

Keith ducks his head, his laugh quiet and short lived but no less honest. Raising his eyes again, he catches Shiro looking back at him. He swallows down the heat swelling in his chest. They were as they always were – caught in an eternal moment of suspense. A quiet longing that neither of them could find the nerve to voice. The cicadas sang louder as night seeped around the edges of the desert.

“Well,” Shiro clears his throat, giving Keith’s shoulder one last squeeze before pulling away. “It’s getting late. I should get out of your hair, let you settle in. And I’ve got to get this truck back to the Garrison…” he rambles as he takes another sip of the sweet tea, thinks better, of it, and sets it down half-full on the porch.  Shiro pushes himself up, dusting off his pants just to keep his hand busy. Keith follows him up, standing on the edge of the porch. On the slight incline, they’re nearly the same height. Shiro swallows, and Keith doesn’t miss the way his tongue flicks out over his lips. “I’ll see you in the morning?”

“If I don’t accidently sleep through the next meeting,” Keith replies, just missing the teasing tone he’d been aiming for.

Shiro laughs, and likewise, his heart just isn’t in it. “Right. Yeah, uh- I’ll come out here and drag you back to the Garrison myself if I have to,” he pushes his hand back through his hair and lets it fall restlessly back against his side. “Well… Goodnight, Keith.”

Keith has to take a breath before he can speak. “G’night, Shiro.” He turns away first, because he knows that if he doesn’t, the two of them will end up standing there for another twenty minutes. Stooping down, he picks up the pitcher and the half-empty glasses, and stands again to carry them inside. Behind him, he can hear the light crunch of Shiro’s boots on the dry ground as he walks away. Keith nudges the door open with his hip, walks inside, and sets everything down on the coffee table.

He’s faced with a dark and empty shack. The moon is barely high enough to cast any light inside, and it takes his eyes a moment to adjust. The sound of the cicadas barely penetrates the thin walls. Keith can hear his own heartbeat, the creak of the floor under his feet, his own breath – the silence is too loud. Too heavy with the ghost of his lonely past. It’s in that moment that Keith realizes that this isn’t home after all. The roar of the truck’s engine starts upside. Keith can just barely hear Kosmo whining from the porch. Spinning on his heel, Keith slams the door open and runs out onto the porch. “Shiro?”

Shiro hasn’t even pulled the driver’s door closed yet, and the moment he sees Keith frantically running out of the shack, he’s climbing out and hurrying toward him. “Keith? Hey, Keith, what’s wrong?” he rushes out, arm already open to him.

Keith isn’t sure why he chose that moment. Objectively, there’ve been a hundred better moments in the past. Moments of raw devotion, loyalty, and compassion. Conversations baring their souls open to each other. Quiet scenes of natural companionship. Times when the heat of battle had them doubting they’d make it out alive. Any one of those moments may have been more Earth-shattering than this one. But it’s at _this one_ that Keith curls his fingers around the back of Shiro’s head and pulls him down to his lips.

Shiro is shocked still for a second, but somehow, Keith doesn’t let that second turn into fear of rejection. As the spell breaks, Shiro is sighing against his mouth, shoulders sagging in pure _relief_ as he wraps his arm around Keith, swipes his tongue into his mouth, holds him for all he’s worth. The suspense was cut clean, and they were left floating in place. Keith brings his other arm up and drapes it over Shiro’s shoulders, pressing himself against him as close as he can. Still, it’s the furthest thing from desperate. Keith had always thought he might feel a rush of heat through his body the day he finally had the balls to kiss Shiro. He thought he might feel like he was burning up from the inside out, or his breath might stop in his chest, or his heart would beat so fast it’d burst free from his rib cage.

But the night is cool. The only heat he feels is Shiro’s solid body against his, and the pleasant burn of bourbon in his stomach. This is the easiest thing in the universe. This is home.

When Shiro pulls away, it’s not far. He presses their foreheads together, his hand sliding down to settle on the small of Keith’s back. His eyes are dazed, half lidded as he looks back at him. “Keith…” he breathes like it’s the only thing he can bring himself to say.

Keith nods, because he understands. It’s daunting – but they can have this. They’re allowed to have this damn it, they deserve it more than anything. Keith reaches into his back pocket and fishes out one of two keys to the new locks on the door. He guides Shiro’s hand off of his back and holds it between them, pressing the key into his palm and folding his fingers around it. Keith holds Shiro’s closed fist over his heart, and holds his gaze with his own. “Stay.”

Shiro exhales. Reality isn’t shattering around them just yet. It’s a little hard to believe. “Okay.”


	2. Chapter 2

 

The grey jacket is foreign on his body, and the brass pins heavy. He wears it well, though, and Keith hates that. He’s filled out in the places he was gangly and awkward when he first left Earth. No longer has to roll the sleeves on his uniform, or pin the hems to his size. Even back then, he’d never really imagined himself in this uniform. He’s never been cut out for it. Not the uniform or the “Yes, sir” life – with a few exceptions.

“Stop fidgeting,” Shiro leans over slightly to whisper, breath warm against the shell of Keith’s ear. “You look fine.”

Keith sends a half glare up at Shiro, fighting down the scarlet flush crawling up the side of his neck. This whole “promotion” seems entirely unnecessary and pointless when they’ve spent the past several years at the far reaches space as Defenders of the known Universe. They’re the Paladins of Voltron for fuck’s sake. They left Earth behind as three Cadets, a Junior Officer, and a Drop-out. Now suddenly the Garrison is pinning them up in brass and medals, “rewarding” them with rank. Suddenly, they give a shit. It feels less like the Garrison trying to “aid” them in their fight against the rogue remnants of the former Galran Empire, and more like they’re trying to stick them into rank and file. Giving them positions so that they can still lord higher command over them. Keith knows that in the end, he and Shiro are the Black Paladins. He’s not here to take orders from a couple of high and mighty officers who’ve never flown past Saturn. These people can’t fathom what lies inside their own Solar System, much less the Universe.

They’ve only been back on Earth for good for a few months now. There was that stint about a year ago to get the plans for the Castle of Lions from Samuel Holt, and after that incident... well, there’d been no hiding the truth about life from other worlds any longer. Keith had been quite happy to leave Earth for the fall out of that mess, and even happier to let the Garrison scramble to clean it all up. Now, after their last fatal blow to the Galra, they’d decided that Earth was as good a place as any to set up a sort of home base. The war, for the most part, was over, but the fight to keep peace would likely never be. New factions would rise up to take their enemy’s place, and Voltron would be there to meet them head on.

So, yeah. They were back now. For good. And, as much as Keith loathed to say, there were a few perks in working with the Garrison now. They got paid a fair wage, in return for giving the Garrison as much information as they could about what was out there. They’d teach classes every once in a blue moon, something Keith was less excited about, but otherwise they were pretty much left to their own devices. So long as they kept Earth safe, the Garrison didn’t really care what they did, so long as they came when called. They’d been given clearance to fly the Lions around the World as needed, a sort of freedom Keith had been dreading they’d lose when they returned. Really, it wasn’t all _that_ bad.

But Keith finds himself _very_ strongly debating whether or not this whole thing is worth it when he’s forced to wear this uniform. Keith nudges Shiro in the side as they walk down the corridors of the Garrison grounds, heading away from their last meeting. “I don’t care how I look in this,” he tries to defend himself.

Shiro only grins. “Then stop fidgeting, _Sir.”_

Keith reaches up and snatches the beret fixed neatly on Shiro’s head. “Sorry we can’t all wear the uniform with the same grace, _Sir_ ,” he fires back. Shiro tries to grab the beret back, but Keith isn’t having it, and holds it just out of reach. They’re dissolving into a childish wrestling match in the middle of the hall when another officer rounds the corner. Shiro immediately straightens up and nods to him, while Keith just shoots them a smirk and drops Shiro’s hat on his head. He’d gotten more than a few comments from the Garrison Commanders about cutting his hair since he’d returned. If the women don’t have to cut their hair, neither does he. He’s been getting away with pulling it back in a bun so far. At this point, he just alters the uniform slightly out of regulation just to piss them off. Really, in some ways he hasn’t changed that much from his time as a Cadet here.

The moment the Commander passes with a curt nod to the both of them. Shiro swipes the beret off of Keith’s head and uses it to smack him upside the head. Keith only laughs and reaches out to take Shiro’s hand – only to realize he’s on the wrong side. There’s a bit of awkward shuffling as Keith moves to Shiro’s left to try again. He tugs Shiro forward with a little more force than necessary when Shiro laughs at his expense.

“How’s the progress on your arm?” Keith asks as they push through the doors and out into the desert heat. The hover bike is parked just outside the door. Keith pushes off his jacket as soon as he walks out, leaving him in his black t-shirt.

Shiro does the same, managing with practiced ease to get the buttons undone. He tosses the jacket to Keith, who catches it and puts it with his in the hover bike’s storage compartment. “Hunk wants to try out the new prototype this weekend,” he replies.

Keith frowns, arms crossed over his chest as he leans back against the bike. “That’s pretty damn fast after what happened _last_ time.” Last time, of course, being a prototype arm that had either been hooked up incorrectly or was incompatible with Shiro’s nervous system. They never did find out really, because Shiro had shouted in pain when he’d tried to move his fingers, and Keith had taken it upon himself to destroy the damn thing once it had been removed.

Shiro only shrugs at the comment. “It’s not going to be easy, I’m prepared for that. I’ll give it a shot.”

“Alright,” Keith huffs as he hikes his leg up over the seat of the bike, “but I want to be there.”

Shiro chuckles and steps forward. Keith expects him to follow suit and climb up onto the seat behind him, but Shiro’s hand rests on his knee instead. “I know,” Shiro smiles. “Thank you.” Sliding his hand up Keith’s thigh and over his waist, Shiro finally settles on the small of his back. Keith leans over as Shiro brushes their lips together, a soft kiss that neither of them are quite used to yet. It’s all still just a little thrilling. That first night that Shiro spent at the shack wasn’t the passionate love making and confessing that might have been expected. They didn’t talk much at all, actually. Just held each other in bed as the night cooled off, exchanging slow kisses and fewer words. They’d been taking it easy, moving at their own pace, not worrying about labelling what they were. Keith lets go of one handle in favour of cupping the side of Shiro’s face, fingertips lightly brushing through his hair. Shiro isn’t smiling when he pulls back, but his eyes say enough. “Let’s go home.”

Just hearing Shiro call it home means more than Keith can put to words.

 

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

 

There are priorities, and the first is water. This, Keith knows well. Years of living in the desert has made survival second nature. He used a pumping well that went down to the water table when he was out here on his own, and it has been working just fine for the past week, but if he and Shiro are really going to get serious about staying out here, they’ll need something more substantial. A trip into town that afternoon brings them to a contractor to set up a proper water line and plumbing. There are already pipes underneath the shack, remnants from the house that had once stood there, but as Shiro had argued, it was _very_ illegal to just tap into it and hook up a line. Keith, of course, didn’t see what the big deal was, but gave in nonetheless.

The appointment is dull, and Keith is more than a little restless by the time they’re out. The time and date for set up is confirmed, the contractor paid, and Keith is, honestly, a little overwhelmed by it all. He’s not really used to having a wage, and feels almost guilty about spending money even on necessities like this, even if he and Shiro as splitting the cost. It does take the edge off of survival, nudging him over the line of actually living, but it’s still as foreign as the starched grey fabric of his uniform.

They swing by the grocery store after they’ve finished to pick up dinner. It’s a bit of bickering as they walk across the parking lot until they decide on chicken stir-fry. They need some more stock foods though, anything that won’t go bad or take up space in their small fridge, so they divvy up the list and split up.  

It’s all so – domestic, Keith thinks as he roams the aisles. The black plastic basket is digging an indent into the crook of his arm, weighed down by a tub of butter and a bottle of soy sauce, as he browses through the produce. Settling into this rhythm with Shiro was easier than he’d ever imagined, and at times he still feels a little stupid for taking so long to just grow a pair and kiss him. They’d always loved each other, and known that. That love had grown over the years, evolved, but they’d been willing to death with and for each other so many times. And even through war, pain, separation, and death, Keith had never actually believed they’d make it to this place – debating over what to have for dinner and putting money toward a home.

“Is that Mr. Kogane?” a voice snaps him out of his reverie. Keith’s attention snaps up to find a greying woman walking toward him with a bright smile on her plump face.

Keith ducks his head a bit, but doesn’t shy away as the woman approaches. “Uh- hey, Mrs. Reyes. Been a while, huh?”

Mrs. Reyes wasn’t the type of woman to beat around the bush. The moment she’s within arms’ reach, she’s pulling Keith down into a crushing hug. Even with the significant growth and muscle mass he’s gained during his time in space, _somehow_ this woman manages to nearly crush the air out of his lungs. “A while? Just a while? Too long, Keith! You just vanish out of the blue for years? And you don’t even write?” she lamented, in heavily accented English.

Keith manages, though not without difficulty, to worm his way out of the embrace so he can catch his breath. “Ah- sorry,” he says as he straightens up again. “I’ve been a little out of range-“

“Oh, I know all about your time in the outer spaces,” she admonishes him with a firm eye, hands planted on her hips. “No excuse!”

Keith had always been antagonistic toward the authority figures in his life after his father’s death. From the Orphanage to the Garrison, he challenged anyone who tried to take him. There was exceptions of course – Shiro, his old social worker Renne, and the unmovable object that was Mrs. Elena Reyes. Keith had only actually known the woman for a year before Shiro crash landed on Earth and the Blue Lion carried them away.

He’d been caught stealing from her. Mrs. Reyes and her husband owned this grocery store, and when Keith had gotten booted from the Garrison, he’d been more than a little short on cash, and even that had run out. He’d been desperate. Mr. Reyes had dragged him out of the store by the hair, thrown him onto the curb, and threatened to call the Cops. It was Mrs. Reyes, though, that recognized the starving orphan with no other choice. Instead of charging him, she gave him a job. Keith would make deliveries on his bike, help restock, do the heavy lifting that the aging couple couldn’t do. Even Mr. Reyes had warmed up to him eventually, understood his need for quiet. They’d been good to him when he’d been in a rough place.

“Alright, alright,” Keith chuckles as he adjusts the basket on his arm. “Next time I’m off world, I’ll be sure to send you a letter.”

“You had better, young man,” Mrs. Reyes smiles as she takes Keith’s cheeks in both her hands and pulls him down to kiss his forehead.

Keith, a little awkward under the affection, just shakes his head as he stands up again. As he does, his eyes stray to the clock on the wall above the deli counter. He’s supposed to meet up with Shiro at the cash register in five minutes. A thought crosses his mind. “Hey, um… I’d actually like you to meet someone.”

He walks with Mrs. Reyes along the aisles, peering down each lane. When he finally finds Shiro, he’s in the dry goods section, staring at the shelf. Keith feels something tug in him immediately. Frown pulling a crease between his brows, Keith approaches him slowly. “Shiro?”

Shiro doesn’t respond. Doesn’t so much as glance in Keith’s direction. Keith holds out a hand behind him and Mrs. Reyes, thankfully, stays put at the end of the aisle. He doesn’t look back to see what her reaction is. Keith stops right next to him, hand hovering over Shiro’s shoulder before thinking better of it. “Shiro. Hey, what’s wrong?”

Shiro jumps. It’s just a small movement, a startled jolt as Shiro’s focus comes crashing back into reality. He blinks, realizes his mistake, and tries to recover. “Oh, I- sorry,” he stammers. “I don’t…”

Keith tentatively rests his hand on Shiro’s shoulder. “You okay?” he glances down at the basket hanging on Shiro’s arm – it’s empty.

“Yeah, I just… I don’t know what came over me. Sorry,” Shiro clears his throat.

He does this sometimes. Goes stock still, eyes blank and empty, forgetting what he was doing for a moment. It had happened a few times in the Castleship, but more-so now that they were home. Something small would set him off – a scent, a sound, a texture, just the tiniest details. Keith’s eyes scan the shelf Shiro had been staring at, and finds a box of Rigatoni with a picture of the Colosseum on the front, a Gladiator standing in the foreground with a perfect commercial smile. Keith doesn’t draw any more attention to it, but slides his hand across Shiro’s back and nudges him away. “Don’t apologise, it’s fine,” he reassures him quietly as he guides him over to the kind woman waiting at the end of the aisle. “Uh- right. Mrs. Reyes, this is Shiro, my- um-,” Keith stumbles for a moment to define them, “my partner. Shiro, this is Elena Reyes. I worked for her after I left the Garrison.”

Mrs. Reyes, of course, beams up at the handsome young man and offers her right hand. She catches herself a moment too late, as Shiro reaches with his left. Noticing the amputated limb for the first time, Mrs. Reyes’ eyes widen in horror. Shiro quickly diverts her attention by placing his left hand on her upper arm in a friendly greeting. “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Reyes,” he says with a small bow of his head out of habit.

Mrs. Reyes tears her eyes away as if she’s been burned, embarrassment red on her cheeks. “And very nice to meet you too, young man.”

It’s a few short exchanges before Keith is saying his goodbyes, promising to keep in touch as he guides Shiro to the check out. He grabs a frozen pizza on the way, because they’re not staying there any longer. Stirfry is off the table for tonight. Keith takes the empty basket off of Shiro’s arm and sets it in the bin by the cashier.

Shiro presses his forefinger and thumb between his eyes, a tight grimace on his face. “Keith…”

“We’re going, it’s okay,” Keith murmurs back. “You can wait outside at the bike if you want some fresh air.”

Shiro looks for a moment like he wants to argue, but Keith fires back with a sharp look. It’s not pity, not coddling just understanding. An acceptance that this _happens_ , and it’ll pass like everything else, but that doesn’t mean Shiro has to prolong it out of stubbornness. Shiro sighs, pressing his hand to Keith’s waist as he kisses his temple and walks out into the mid-day heat.

 

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

 

The newest test for the prosthetic arm is – well, Shiro is still one arm short by the time they go home that day. It had responded well at first, until Shiro had done a grip test and the joints started to spark. So, back to the drawing board. Keith had stayed out of the way for the most part, letting the Engineers take care of things until he’d nearly needed to put Shiro’s prosthetic out with the fire extinguisher. After things had calmed down, he’d returned to the couch in the corner of the lab, picking up his book again and flipping back to find his page. Shiro had asked what he was reading as they removed the arm, to which Keith just replied that it was a psychology thing. Lance had cracked a joke about Keith finally trying to understand people, Keith had thrown a cushion at him, and Shiro never got the chance to actually ask why Keith had taken an interest in the human mind.

By the time they get home, the contractor is just packing up his truck. The plumbing is just about installed, and the man says he’ll come back in the morning to hook everything up. So, they go about their evening as normal. Shiro is bringing firewood inside for the cast iron stove when he catches Keith bringing in four massive cartons of what looks like salt. When questioned, Keith tells him it’s nothing important, and just carries them inside. Keith starts the fire, Shiro cooks, and they watch old movies on the grainy TV until they’re both too tired to keep their eyes open. Keith is helpless when he’s sleepy, and Shiro drags him half-awake into the bedroom, coaxes him into his pajama pants, and into bed. Kosmo sleeps at the foot of their bed, sprawled out on his back with his tongue hanging out of his open mouth. They’ve got the window open, and a fan blowing cool air at full power as they fall asleep.

Keith wakes up when he feels the shitty mattress shift. Kosmo is as the edge of the bed now, sitting on the floor and licking his hand where it’s hanging off the bed. He groans, lightly pushing his face away as he drags himself out of sleep. The bed is shuddering – it isn’t so much the sensation as the straight fact that has Keith opening his eyes wider. He pushes himself upright and finds Shiro sitting up against the wrought iron headboard. He has one knee pulled up against his chest, his hand scrubbing over his face and into his hair. Keith is fully awake in an instant, pushing himself up and turning over toward him.

“Shiro,” he says quietly, almost afraid to speak too loud. The room isn’t exactly silent – the desert is a steady chorus out their window, and the mechanical whir of the fan is a comforting white noise. Shiro’s heavy breathing alone is enough sound to fill the bedroom at this late hour. It should be unsurprising that Keith’s whisper isn’t enough to get through to him. His heart stutters anyway. “Shiro, look at me,” he tries again.

Shiro doesn’t respond. Keith doesn’t need to ask to know that it was a nightmare. Shifting on the bed, Keith moves in front of him. He’s half straddling his outstretched leg when he reaches out to firmly hold either side of Shiro’s face. Keith leans forward, pulling until their foreheads are pressed together. “ _Takashi_ ,” he says with more force.

It’s enough. Shiro’s eyes snap into focus, caught in the violet orbit of Keith’s gaze, and Keith holds him there. It’s intense, too sharp and too manic in the dead of the night, until Shiro exhales. It’s a sigh that rattles through his lungs and vibrates through his entire body. The bedpost knocks against the wall. Fear’s knife edge softens off of Shiro’s neck, and the moment Keith feels it, he allows himself to relax as well.

He closes his eyes for a moment, letting Shiro groan and push his face in against Keith’s neck. Keith just holds him, rubbing his hand in circles on Shiro’s back. “I’m here,” he whispers. He just barely feels the flush of heat crawling up Shiro’s neck and to the shell of his ear. “I’m right here with you.”

Shiro doesn’t calm down easily. Even if he’s not panicking, not wild and manic with fear, unable to tell reality from memory, he’s still tense. Unhappy. And Keith would tear the world apart if it meant making him feel safe again. So, he stays with Shiro until his breathing is close to even again, when he kisses his cheek and slips out of bed. Kosmo is quick to take his place, crawling up on the bed and settling heavily into Shiro’s lap. Keith watches from the doorway as Shiro eases back against the pillows, Kosmo's massive head plopped onto his chest.

He heads outside with a single minded focus. Keith knows fuck all about plumbing, but he convinces himself he knows enough about general mechanics that he can figure it out – and to his own surprise, he does. He’ll probably have to get the contractor to fix any mistakes he made in the morning, even if he only messed with one valve, but that’s a problem for later. Keith ambles his way inside again twenty minutes later. “Hey,” he calls out quietly so as not to startle Shiro again.

Shiro looks up at him with heavy eyes, exhausted but miles away from sleep. When Keith just nods his head toward the door, Shiro nudges Kosmo off of his lap and drags himself out of bed. “What?” he asks with a long yawn.

“C’mon,” is all Keith replies as he takes Shiro’s hands and leads him out. He stops in the main room only to grab a box of matches and a lantern. An electronic light would be more efficient, maybe, but Keith had bought this years ago because matches were cheaper than batteries. As they walk through the living room, they pass the book Keith had been reading earlier that day – left open on a page about PTSD and hydrotherapy.

The bathroom was an add-on that Keith’s dad built ages ago. Unfortunately, that means that it isn’t directly attached to the shack, and to get to it, they have to go outside. The sound of running water penetrates the thin wooden walls as they approach. Keith opens the door to reveal the bathtub slowly filling up with warm water. There’s already water leaking onto the floor, but that’s a problem for the morning. A wooden chair is set up at the side of the tub. Closing the door behind them, Keith hangs the lantern on a hook above the single window, and the room is bathed in a soft, amber light. He turns the tap on the bathtub, and the flow of water stops. The steady fall of water droplets from the faucet fills the room.

Standing up straight, Keith nods to Shiro’s clothes. “Off,” he says.

Shiro hesitates only a moment before he gets the idea. There’s no shame, no embarrassment or self-consciousness as he undresses. Keith, for his part, doesn’t really watch anyway. He busies himself by dumping the contents of an entire 8 lb container of Epsom Salts into the water, sticking his arm in to stir it around. When he looks up, he catches Shiro watching him with a quirked brow. Keith only shrugs and pulls up his chair at the edge of the bathtub.

It occurs to him, as he’s watching Shiro lower himself into the water that this is the first time he’s seen Shiro naked. It’s the first time he’s seen the extent of the scars slashed across his thighs, or the way his muscles shift beneath his skin with every movement. It’s a little mesmerizing, but Keith doesn’t stare. Yes, Shiro is _very_ well endowed, and although the thought might send a little thrill up his spine, it’s just a fact.

Keith sees the moment Shiro realizes why he put all the salt in the water. He was no scientist, but he’d read that the high concentration would change the density of the water. Shiro’s shoulders slump and his eyes flutter closed with a relieved sigh. It gives the water an almost gravity-less sensation, floating effortlessly. Keith waits until Shiro is settled before coaxing his head back. Cupping his hands in the water, he pours it over his head and gradually wets his hair. Keith reaches for a bottle of generic shampoo and squirts a dollop into the palm of his hand. The moment his fingertips graze against his scalp, he feels the tension drain out of Shiro. Keith’s eyes soften. He leans over, smoothing the shampoo back through Shiro’s hair as he presses his mouth against his forehead.

“You good?” he breathes. Shiro can only hum in response, blissed out and bone-tired. Keith sits up again, massaging the shampoo through Shiro’s hair from his temples to the base of his neck. “You can fall asleep, if you want,” Keith assures him. “I’ve got you.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Took me a while to get back to this, but I'm here! This summer was crazy, and Season 7 just came out so soon after Season 6, I barely had the time to revisit this. Thankfully, I'd set up the first two chapters so that the ending of the series is vague, and their return to Earth last season fits just in into what I already head. Whether or not this'll stand the test of time after Season 8, I've got no clue, but you know what? Who cares! I'm here for a good time. The only thing I've had to change was Kosmo. Not too bad.

The morning that Keith and Shiro wake up drenched in their own sweat, they decide its past time to get proper air conditioning. Open windows and fans can only get so far. Peeling themselves off the sheets and off each other, they drag themselves out of bed. Kosmo only groans in his sleep and shifts to take up the spaces left behind. Mornings can be hard, and they snip at each other until Keith takes the first shower and Shiro pours out some of the iced coffee he’d made the night before. It’s a trade-off, a kiss on the forehead and a cold cup, when Keith emerges from the shower with his hair still dripping onto his white t-shirt, and Shiro takes his turn washing the sweat and grime from his body. Mornings are hard, but the dry heat that comes with the rising sun is unbearable.

Most days, they try to get up before dawn, when the desert is still cool and quiet. They’re not always successful.

While Shiro showers, Keith finishes his breakfast and rips the sheets off the bed. Kosmo growls and whines, rolling over like a log as Keith pulls the bedding out from under him, then huffs and remains spread across the bare mattress. They haven’t got a proper washer and dryer yet, so Keith brings the bedding out to a tin tub out behind the house. He fills the tub with water from the rubber hose and pours a capful of no-rinse detergent in, watching it get sudsy before plunging the sheets in. He washes them on a board, scrubbing them clean. By the time he’s done, Shiro is fresh out of the shower, and helps him hang them up on the string they’d tied between the house and the tree.

Keith watches as Shiro struggles a bit with straightening out the flat sheet with one arm, but lets him do it himself. There are limits to how long he’ll let Shiro grapple with his own stubbornness, but for the most part, it’s important to Shiro. When the white sheet is strung up on the line, Keith creeps over toward Shiro’s shadow, cast on the fabric. He thinks he’s clever – but Shiro’s waiting on the other side already, wrapping his arm around Keith’s waist and kissing him soundly.

The struggle with getting the laundry up brings them to their next task of the day.

Shiro gets a new arm. It’s just an arm. It doesn’t turn into a glowing weapon, it doesn’t float, and it doesn’t take control of his mind to turn him into a homicidal monster. The last arm, though a gracious and needed gift from Allura, hadn’t survived the final fight with Haggar. Shiro, after that, had wanted to wait until things settled down to try again. So, when he gets a new arm, it’s _just_ an arm. Sleek, white brushed steel that grants him that small measure of independence back. And, as a bonus it doesn’t spark uncontrollably or cause incredible agony when Shiro so much as flexes a finger.

It’s noon by the time they leave the Garrison. The sun is scorching down on the desert without mercy. They opt to leave the hoverbike in the garage and take one of the all-terrain trucks, so they can pick up an air-conditioner on the way home – central air conditioning is out of the question at the moment.

As they pull out of the shaded garage and into the desert heat, Keith begins to unbutton his uniform jacket in the passenger seat. “It shouldn’t take too long to set up,” he says as Shiro rolls the windows down.

“I wouldn’t imagine so,” Shiro agrees. He’s still flexing the fingers on his right hand. Keith hides a smile. Shiro sees it anyway, smiling himself as he reaches over with his right arm to take Keith’s hand. Keith takes it, and Shiro squeezes so softly it’s hard to believe his hand isn’t flesh. Shiro clears his throat. “It’s just fitting it in the window and getting it plugged in, right?”

Keith nods. “Yeah, the only thing I’m concerned about is keeping everything insulated so the cold air doesn’t escape. Not sure how much I trust the windowsill to keep the unit in place.”

“We can pick up some wood to reinforce it,” Shiro suggests. “Balance the weight out a little bit and give some more room for it to sit on. Then maybe some insulation foam to keep everything sealed.”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Keith grunts as he sheds the grey jacket. He tosses it into the seat behind him, before reaching down into his carrier bag at his feet. After rooting around for a moment, he pulls out a black t-shirt.

“What are you doing?” Shiro asks with a quirked brow and a quick side glance from the road.

Keith only mirrors his quirked brow. “Uh, changing?” he replies with a shrug, dropping the shirt in his lap. His fingers find the hem of his shirt. He looks back at the wide expanse of barren road ahead of them. “It’s hot out, and the uniform undershirts are too thick,” he says as he pulls his shirt up.

Shiro scoffs in amusement. “And wearing _black_ is a better idea?”

“Shut up,” Keith laughs. He tugs the shirt off over his head, leaving himself bare chested. Though still smaller in comparison to Shiro, Keith’s frame has filled out over the years. The toned planes of his muscles glisten like pale gold in the afternoon sun. Keith takes a moment to take an elastic from his bag, and sweeps his hands over the nape of his neck to smooth his hair up into a loose bun. A few stray hairs fall around his ears, down the side of his neck, over his forehead. With his hair in place, he goes for the t-shirt, only to stop mid-reach when he catches Shiro’s lingering gaze. A playful smile pulls at his lips. “Keep your eyes on the road, Captain,” he teases.

Shiro stiffens in embarrassment and snaps back to attention, the car swerving a bit as he jerks his hands on the wheel. He can feel the scarlet blush rising up his neck and burning his cheeks. Beside him, he can hear Keith laughing quietly to himself. He chances only one more side glance as Keith slides into his t-shirt, catching his smile and mirroring it with his own.

It’s a quick stop at the hardware store. They know what they need, so it’s just a matter of finding it all, paying, and getting it back to the truck. Shiro carries a little more than he needs to, with the unit tucked under one arm and the wood balanced over his shoulder, and Keith almost tells him to knock it off and let him help – but Shiro is practically beaming. Keith doesn’t have it in him to tell him to knock it off before his pride leaves him with a pulled muscle.

They stop for burgers further in town before heading back out toward the red cliffs of the desert. It’s the middle of the afternoon at this point, and the shadows are long. Cicadas and crickets sing from the dry bushes as they roll down the streets, further and further from the newer parts of town and into the old neighborhoods. Keith has his window down, arm resting on top of the door as he sips on his coke. The buildings get older the further toward the desert they get, until they look like they’re almost falling apart; a few decrepit houses, vacant stores, a disused church. Keith’s gaze lingers a moment on the Orphanage as they pass it.

When they drive by the cemetery, passing along the wrought iron fence, and rolling fields of headstones and statues, Keith watches it until he’s looking back out the window, half leaning out of his seat. As he exhales and settles back down, Shiro reaches across the centre console to take his hand. Keith looks up at Shiro with his heart battering against his ribcage.

“Do you want to go back?” Shiro asks.

Keith nods.

They turn around. Shiro slows down as they pass under the rusted arch, wheels crunching over the gravel. Parking off to the side, they slide out of the truck and continue on foot. Keith knows the way by heart, could find his way here in the dead of night – and has more times than he could count. He navigates his way through the winding paths, and cracked and faded stone monuments. As he approaches the familiar willow tree, he touches the gnarled bark, and stops for a moment to watch how the sun spills gold across his father’s headstone.

Only then does Keith notice that Shiro isn’t beside him anymore. He turns to look over his shoulder, watching as Shiro stoops down on his knee to fix the flowers on a stranger’s grave. Shiro looks up at him and smiles. It’s a soft exhale, a skipped heartbeat, and Keith watching in disbelief as he falls in love with Shiro that much deeper – just when he didn’t think it was possible. He offers his hand to help Shiro to his feet, and despite Shiro’s bolstered pride that day, Shiro takes it. They don’t let go as they approach Heath Kogane’s grave.

“Hey, Pa,” Keith says as they slow to a stop in front of the headstone. “S’been a while. Sorry about that. There’s a big bad Universe out there to protect.” He speaks with a conversational ease, a soft and a familiar gaze, as if he’s staring right at his father. “We’re fixing up the old shake, y’know. It’s in rough shape, but it’s livable, and I think we’re doing alright. Helps that you left the land in my name, anyway, so we don’t have to wrestle with permits. ‘Course, you probably had the House in mind when you set that up, but you’re the one that brought your work home with you,” he laughs. His voice is a wind chime against the morbid settling, curling in the air like strands of silver. “Mom’s back out there with the Blades, by the way. She tries to come back and visit when she can but… it’s hard. Guess you know that already.”

Shiro’s been to the grave a handful of times at this point. Listening to Keith speak like this is a normal occurrence, the first time he’d come, back when they were both still in the Garrison, Shiro had awkwardly introduced himself to the stone when Keith had finished speaking. Keith had laughed at him – not because he was giving his name to thin air, but because Keith had _obviously_ already told his father about him. Then there was the first time they’d visited after they started living together, when Shiro had stood tense at Keith’s side because it felt like Heath was shotgunning him from beyond the grave.

Now, though, Shiro just stands as support and lets Keith do the talking, holding his hand and quietly contemplating the early tragedies of his partner’s life. He reaches out, running his hand over the top of the stone and feeling how the polished surface is slowly eroding. “We’ll come out some time soon and clean it up, if you want,” he offers when Keith is finished. “Maybe bring some flowers.”

Keith only scoffs with a fond grin. “You kidding? He wouldn’t want flowers. The Old Man would be telling us to bring some tobacco, then immediately yelling at us for wasting it on a dead man.”

Shiro chuckles easily, sliding his arm around Keith’s waist. Keith leans into him, his head resting on his shoulder, as Shiro turns his head to press his lips to his temple. “I wish I could have met him,” Shiro murmurs into Keith’s hair.

Keith lets out a long breath. “I do, too.”

They drive home. It takes a bit of debate while Keith pours out some sweet tea for them to decide whether they should just set up the A/C now or wait until it’s cooler out, but Shiro eventually wins him over when he points out that it’ll take hours for it to work. If they want to avoid waking up in their own sweat in the morning, they’d best get it over with now.

So, they get to work. Shiro unloads the truck, setting everything out on the porch, while Keith gets out the tools. “I know he had some better power tools, but I can’t remember where we unloaded them after the Garrison gave everything back,” he calls out to Shiro through the open door.

There’s a harsh creaking sound as Shiro pushes the window open over the futon. He leans in through the gap. “I think I remember seeing a rotary hand saw in the box under the radio equipment,” he replies.

Keith gives him a thumbs up before checking that corner of the room. Sure enough, he finds a box with the hand saw and the power drill. It’s as he’s going through that box, however, that he catches a glimpse of a smaller, wooden box sitting beneath it. Keith is compelled to drag it out, brushing the dust off the top with an almost reverent touch.

Shiro leans through the open window further, trying to get a look. “What’s that?”

“My Dad’s music,” Keith shakes his head. “He liked collecting old stuff like this, Cassettes, CDs, and Vinyls, the stuff they’d write music on when people first started recording it, before it was all digital.” Keith’s gaze sweeps the stack of equipment before finding what he’s looking for. He pops the latch on the box, pulling out the first tape he can find and slipping it into a narrow slot. It takes a few minutes of fiddling with the controls to get the player on, but soon enough, there’s a laid-back melody filling the room. Keith crosses the room, leaning across the futon to kiss Shiro through the open window.

“This is nice,” Shiro comments when he breaks away, “I like it.” He leans in for another kiss – or two, or three, or four…

“Alright, alright, enough distractions,” Keith chuckles between the onslaught of Shiro’s lips. “You were the one all gung-ho about getting this thing set up.”

Although, for all Keith talks about distractions, he certainly isn’t immune to them. The day goes on and the sun gets lower as they work on reinforcing the window frame and getting the air conditioner, but it’s no less hot out. Shiro ends up chucking his shirt off, and Keith nearly trips over his own feet when he sees the way the sweat glistens on his bare chest.

And Shiro, being an absolute bastard, not only notices but takes advantage of it.

For the next hour, Keith is forced to watch as Shiro shows off. It’s not just carrying heavy object like they’re nothing anymore. He makes sure Keith is in view every time he takes a long swing from his bottle, water drippling down his chin. He waits until Keith is watching him to use the hammer to fit pieces of wood into place around the window, or use the saw to cut the wood down to size. Kosmo pops in and out over the course of the afternoon (and Keith can’t help but notice that the wolf always appears far enough away that he isn’t startling Shiro, and walks the rest of the distance). Shiro spends a few minutes playing fetch with a piece of scrap wood, and Keith spends those few minutes watching the way Shiro’s muscles on his back move with each throw.

Frankly, it’s unfair. So, Keith decides, two can play at that game. He opts to keep his shirt on, using the bottom to wipe the sweat off his face when he needs it. It exposes just enough of his abdomen that Shiro forgets what he’s doing midway through measuring a plank. Keith only winks and walks away. It’s little crimes like that – like keeping his hair down, but pushing it off the back of his neck and toward his shoulder to get some cool air on the skin. It was a miracle Shiro wasn’t getting sun stroke with how red his face was after those little “incidences”.

Flirt war or no, they get the job done. Before the sun has dipped down toward the horizon, they had the air conditioner set into the window, insulated around the edges and sturdy enough to hold the weight.

“You ready?” Keith calls from his place inside, crouched by the power outlet.

“Gimme a sec,” Shiro replies through the open door. Keith can just see the top of his head over the edge of the unit as he hammers the frame even. “Okay, go ahead!”

Keith plugs in the unit, and with a steady crescendo, air begins to circulate into the shack. Keith rises up on his knees, sticking his face right in the flow of air with a sigh. “It’s working, babe!”

“Alright,” Shiro calls back. “Turn it off for a bit, I just want to make sure the insulation is secure.”

“Got it,” Keith leans down again and pulls the plug. The unit sputters as the power dies, and the shack is left silent again.  Keith glances up at Shiro through the window again, before fully taking advantage of his position. He stands up with a stretch, reaching his arms over his head and arching his back toward the window.

But maybe he’s taken it too far, he realizes, when he hears a loud clang of metal. Keith hurries to the open door peaks around to find Shiro looking down in confusion at the hammer, currently slammed down again the thumb of his prosthetic hand. Nevermind the fact that Shiro had been using his non-dominant hand to hammer without thinking, but the hammer is _dented_ around Shiro’s thumb, without a scratch on the appendage. He pulls the hammer back with an almost pout-like frown, and Keith just can’t help himself at that point. He loves this man.

Laughing through Shiro’s embarrassment, Keith just walks across the porch and slips his arms around Shiro’s shoulders. He sways a little bit as he guides Shiro down into kiss. He smiles against Shiro’s lips when he hammer drops to the porch with a light thud. Shiro’s arms are circling around his waist as Keith opens his mouth, kissing to the tender rhythm of the music still drifting through the open door. The sun is glaring at them from across the dry plains of the desert, all harsh shadows and glistening orange heat. Shiro moves from Keith’s lips in favour of mouthing across his jaw and down his neck. Keith feels a sigh shudder through his whole body, his head falling to the side and going all sorts of hazy and blissed out with every brush of Shiro’s tongue on his skin.

He becomes all too aware of the tense heat twisting in his gut as Shiro slips his hands down from his waist to grope his ass. Keith angles his hips up toward Shiro’s, and feels the stutter of Shiro’s breath on his neck when their groins meet.  Sliding his right hand over Shiro’s shoulder, Keith continues down his chest, his abdomen, finally slipping under his jeans to cup him through his boxers. His head clears enough to stop there – because they’ve never actually gone this far. They’ve only been living together for a few months, and maybe they were doing things a little out of order, but it just wasn’t something they’d done. They’d been sleeping in the same bed, seen each other naked, kissed the stars out of their eyes most nights, but this… it just hadn’t happened. Until now.

Shiro rolls his hips into Keith’s hand, and Keith can feel him twitch in his palm. He takes it a little further, massaging his hand up Shiro’s hot arousal until he can push his fingers under the waistband of his boxers and touch Shiro for the first time. Shiro recoils for a moment, like the sensation is too much to handle, before he’s grinding into Keith’s palm again. Keith’s hand is slow to move, tentative as he wraps his fingers around the shaft and slowly begins to jerk Shiro off.

“Keith, _shit_ ,” Shiro sighs like the sound’s been punched out of his stomach. His hands kneed Keith’s ass over his pants, but he’s lost the concentration to leave marks along his neck. He pushes his forehead against Keith’s shoulder, breathing hot air down his shirt.

Keith had no intention to finish this out on the porch. Retracting his hand, he opts instead to curl his fingers around Shiro’s wrist, while his other hand tugs gently at the alabaster hair on the back of Shiro’s head to guide him back up into a proper kiss. They stay like that for just a moment before Keith is stepping backwards, guiding Shiro into the shack. Shiro follows him to the futon, arms moving back up to circle Keith’s waist as he lowers them down onto the cushions.

Shiro’s weight is solid on top of Keith. The shack is like a sauna with the sun beating down on the walls outside, and spilling like gold onto the floor. They’re both sweating through their clothes already. It doesn’t take much prompting for Keith to slip out of his shirt, tossing it across the room before his hands set to roaming down the hardened plains of Shiro’s chest. The process of getting Shiro’s belt undone isn’t made any easier by the fact that they’re still grinding against each other. Finally, Keith gives up with a frustrated huff.

“You’ve gotta help me out here, babe,” he says pointedly.

Shiro stops, pushing his face into the pillow by Keith’s head, panting for breath and laughing in a deep tenor. When he pushes himself upright, he undoes the buckle himself, going a step further by shifting off the futon just enough to shed his pants. Keith feels his stomach swoop at the sight of Shiro’s cock straining upright against his stomach. From the looks of it, Shiro can tell, because he smile down at him with an almost embarrassed tint to his cheeks. His hands find Keith’s hips, holding him down against the futon as he leans forward and starts kissing a trail from Keith’s collar bone to his navel. Keith’s arms rest up by his head, his breathing coming fast as he watches Shiro move down. Finally, Shiro shifts his fingers to the hem of Keith’s pants and he pulls. Keith shifts his hips up a bit so that Shiro can slide his pants and boxers off, tossing them into the growing pile at the foot of the futon.

Keith is left lying there, naked, damp with sweat and panting as he stares up at Shiro. He can feel Shiro’s gaze drinking him in, and any self-consciousness he might have just melts away. Shiro’s mouth twitches into a smile, like he’s just now realizing that this is happening, before he settles over Keith again and catches his lips.

Keith’s arm drops over the side of the futon, his hand feeling around underneath the frame until they brush against a plastic bag. The bottle of lube inside had been a passing thought a few weeks ago, a “just in case” that he’d tossed into his basket with a box of Band-Aids and a chocolate bar. He takes the bottle and brings it up, finding Shiro’s hand already closing around his in anticipation. Shiro pulls back from the kiss just enough to fix Keith with a long look, searching his eyes for some kind of confirmation. Keith nods, lifting his legs to hook around Shiro’s waist. He can feel Shiro, already dripping, as he ruts up against him.

Shiro kisses him hard before sitting upright again. With his metal hand under Keith’s thigh, he pushes a leg up over his shoulder. Keith watches, gut coiling with liquid fire, as Shiro pops the cap off the lube and pumps it into his hand. He warms it up in his palm slicking it over his fingers, before lowering his hand. He circles his index finger around Keith’s hole.

“You tell me if it hurts, okay? Promise.” Shiro demands in a low, gravely tone. Keith only squirms impatiently on the mattress. He gives Keith’s thigh a squeeze. “ _Keith_.”

“Okay, okay, promise.”

The first finger slips in. It doesn’t sting, but the feeling is foreign enough that Keith tenses up. Shiro doesn’t press in further until he feels Keith relax, and all the while Keith can feel his eyes on him like a hawk. It takes time, but Shiro slowly works him loose, adding fingers when Keith is ready. All the while, he slowly jerks him off, spreading bit of the warming lube onto his metal hand so it isn’t so cold when he touches him. Shiro turns his head kissing the underside of Keith’s calf by his ear, as Keith gradually grows more and more needy.

Shiro pulls his fingers out and drops Keith’s leg onto the mattress as he lines himself up. Keith opens his thighs to him, watching in flustered anticipation. Finally, Shiro pushes in, and Keith’s mouth falls open in a pitchy moan. Shiro drops his head, breathing in through his nose for control as he braces his hands by Keith’s shoulders. He goes slow, inching in until his thighs are flush against Keith’s ass. Keith feels like he’s being split in half by his length in the best possible way. His arms loop over Shiro’s shoulders in a lazy hold, tugging him close as Shiro rocks up into him.

And – well, it’s sex. It’s hot, and they’re sweating, and Shiro’s bare back catches the light every time he rolls into Keith. The sunlight paints the walls, fading from gold, to peach, to lilac. They start slow, moving with soft inhales and exhales, until Keith is pitching with every determined snap of Shiro’s hips. It’s sex, and when they’ve already crossed heaven and hell, defied the stars to get to where they were now, there’s nothing more to add to their relationship. It’s intimacy in the highest form, and it’s everything they’ve longed for physically, making each other feel loved and cared for and _good_ , but it isn’t a crossroad in their lives. It’s sex.

Keith arches his back as Shiro loses rhythm to desperation, coming with his fist around his cock and spilling out onto his chest. The tight twist in his gut comes undone, and he’s loud with it, moaning and gasping as each sound is pumped out of him by another slide of Shiro’s feverish hips. Shiro’s voice goes thready and high as he grits his teeth and buries himself to the hilt, feet scrambling on the futon to push himself in deeper as he climaxes. Keith can feel every throb as Shiro pools inside him. Shiro pulls out slowly enough that Keith can watch him, still dripping, and it’s almost enough to make him orgasm all over again. His legs drop down as Shiro collapses on top of him, pushing his face into the pillow by Keith’s head and sliding his arms underneath Keith’s torso.

They end up sprawled out on the futon long after the sun has set, and the stars and crickets have taken over the humid night. Sleepy, and tired, and blissed out.  Shiro lies on his side, tracing patterns over Keith’s stomach with his fingertips. The music is still playing, and as the next song comes on over the scratchy speaker, Keith rolls onto his side and reaches for the dial. “Babe, listen,” he whispers as he turns the music up, “this one’s my favourite.”

They neglect to plug the air conditioner back in, and wake up the next morning in nothing but their own sweat.


	4. Chapter 4

 

There’s a howl rattling the walls like a mountain tipping over on its side, and the nightmarish image doesn’t match, but it has Shiro jerking upright in bed. The sound he makes is quiet; a rustle of sheets and a dry gasp that scratches at his throat. He’s breathing too hard and too fast, the harsh sound that woke him up still pouring into his shuddering arteries. He takes inventory. Keith is asleep beside him, stirring slowly from where he’s got his arms draped around Shiro’s waist and his face pressed against his hip. Kosmo is laying on the floor, lifting his massive head from his paws to stare at Shiro.

It takes Shiro too long to realize what’s wrong. Something outside is shaking the walls. He can feel it through the bed posts and in the floor. The force of it feels strong enough to lift the roof right off the makeshift house, and as Shiro stares up at the aged wood and iron nails holding the place together, it seems more and more likely. His eyes dart out the window – he can’t see anything outside. The desert out the window has been wiped clean and without a trace left behind. There’s _nothing_ , just a wall of grey catching slight hints of amber light from the lamp they’d left on in the main room.

Still half asleep and running on fear alone, there’s a moment where Shiro fully believes that the shack has been lifted up and transported somewhere else. He moves to rip back the covers and face whatever danger is –

“Dust storm,” Keith mumbles against Shiro’s ribs.

The voice cuts through the chaos in Shiro’s head like a diamond. Everything stops, simple as that. Shiro lifts his arm slightly to look down at Keith, who’s currently letting go of his death grip on Shiro’s waist as he pushes himself upright. Keith yawns, pulling his wild bed-messed hair out of his face as he shifts on the mattress. He leans against Shiro again, draping an arm around his neck and resting his cheek against Shiro’s shoulder as he looks out the window.

It takes Shiro a moment to find his voice. “What?”

Keith slips his other hand up to rest over Shiro’s heart, like he can calm its rapid beating with just the touch of his palm. “It’s just a Dust Storm. The wind sounds worse than it actually is, it’s okay,” he murmurs.

Shiro nods, repeating that to himself on a loop as his nervous gaze drifts out the window again. He forces himself to breath. “Does this happen often?”

“Hm,” Keith shrugs. “Not really, once or twice a season.”

Shiro nods. He feels a little guilty for waking Keith up like this, but before he can tell him to go back to sleep as he turns to look down at him, Keith is fixing him with a knowing gaze. No matter how many times he’s faced with it, Shiro is always taken back by the depth of loyalty and compassion Keith can hold in one look. Asking questions and taking it out helps Shiro calm down sometimes – Keith understands this, and understands even more that sometimes it doesn’t. It’s knowing when to push and when to pull back that’s the tricky part. Keith navigates Shiro’s bad nights like he’s hanging their bedsheets like a sail and reading the stars to find his way. Shiro reaches down to take Keith’s hand from over his heart and kiss each knuckle.

“Have you ever worried about the wind taking the roof off?” he asks what’s on his mind.

“If it gets too dangerous, we can have Kosmo teleport us to the Garrison, or inside the Black Lion. Nowhere safer,” Keith replies with a shrug. “It’s fine.”

Shiro can feel Keith’s bare chest press skin to skin against his back. Every breath Keith takes is even and deep, and Shiro tries to match his to the same rhythm. “I meant when you were out here alone,” Shiro replied. “What did you do?”

Keith is quiet for a moment. The wind doesn’t sound so much like a monstrous howl anymore. It’s a low rumble, an idle motor, like the purring engine of a lion as it flies. Keith turns his face in, pressing a kiss to Shiro’s shoulder, and Shiro can feel light scratch of skin where Keith needs to start shaving. “Hunkered down and hoped the whole roof wouldn’t fly off,” he replied honestly as he trailed his lips up from Shiro’s shoulder, to his neck, to the underside of his jaw. “This place’s been sturdy for decades. I think it’ll hold out for a while longer,” he whispered.

 

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

 

When he wakes up in the morning, there’s a hole in the ceiling. Granted it’s not the whole ceiling, but it’s still a hole in the ceiling. Shiro wakes up before Keith, when it’s still dark out, but there’s a faint indigo hue in the sky. Stepping out into the main room, he makes his way over to the coffee maker and almost doesn’t notice. It isn’t until he’s rinsing the pot out in the sink that he feels an out of place breeze. He looks up and finds stars glimmering down through a thin veil of dust left behind in the air –and more importantly, through a sizable gap where a few boards have been ripped off from the roof. Another thing on the list of things to do around the house, then. At this point, Shiro just rolls with it. He focuses on the coffee.

The morning turns grey. Shiro leaves the pot on to stay warm and lets Keith sleep in. Taking his mug and a day-old muffin, he walks out onto the porch, and takes a seat on the edge, and watches as the morning turns grey. It’s not often overcast in the desert. Shiro isn’t sure if it’s the dust in the atmosphere or real clouds, but sky is shaded with a thick cover. The sun struggles to peak through as it rises up over the red cliffs, now turned a dull maroon in the dawn. It’s cool, too. Normally the moment the sun breaks, the desert is set on a rising spectrum between scorching and sweltering, but the morning is as luke warm as the water they’d left in the sink after doing the dishes that night. Shiro, for once, finds himself enjoying the gentle rise of steam from his mug. Kosmo appears in a subtle blue flash from around the corner of the house and trots up on the porch, laying down at Shiro’s back.

He can hear it through the thin walls when Keith finally wakes up. He can hear the creak of the bed and his bare feet on the floor, taking slow and lethargic steps into the main room. Shiro glances over his shoulder to look through the window. He catches a glimpse of Keith, all bed-headed and sleepy-eyed and gorgeous, as he pours himself a mug of coffee. Shiro smiles to himself before turning back to the muted horizon. The door opens behind him with whining hinges. It takes two steps before Shiro feels a soft kiss pressed to the nape of his neck.

Keith sits down beside Shiro, angling himself so he’s facing Shiro and leaning back against the wooden pillar holding up the overhang with one leg dangling off the edge of the porch. He drapes his other leg over Shiro’s lap. Shiro rests his prosthetic hand on Keith’s thigh, and they sip their coffee in silence while Keith finishes waking up.

Finally, Keith seems awake and aware enough for coherent speech. “How’d you sleep?” he asks in a hoarse voice.

Shiro still finds himself a little embarrassed about waking up in such a panic the night before. He knows he doesn’t need to be, and that Keith doesn’t think any less of him for it, but the feeling is still there, so he doesn’t waste energy fighting it. He’d spent most of the night between bouts of fitful sleep, with Keith sound asleep on his chest as he stared out the window at the storm. He clears his throat. “Fine, I slept just fine,” he tries to pass it off, but Keith is already giving him a look. Shiro ducks his head, reaching up to rub the back of his neck. “The, uh… you know what the dorms at the Garrison were like. No windows.”

Again, it’s not the full truth, but Keith doesn’t push. It’s enough, and at least some kind of admission that he’d been frightened by the storm. The Garrison went on lockdown whenever there was a Dust Storm, and the lack of windows in most rooms meant that most Cadets never actually saw them. Keith offers a knowing smile. “Yeah. Drove me crazy.”

“Me too,” Shiro replies. “I always felt so cooped up.”

Keith’s smile shifts into a smirk and a raised brow. “That why you always snuck out?”

 “You did, too,” Shiro laughs and nudges Keith’s leg off his lap.

Keith lifts his leg and bends it enough to nudge Shiro’s thigh with his big toe. “You were a bad influence.”

Shiro can’t argue that with a clear conscience so he leans over and kisses Keith instead. It’s slow, and they’re both still a little tired, but they’re smiling like kids. Shiro pulls back to litter kisses over Keith’s cheeks, his forehead, the tip of his nose, until Keith is laughing and pushing at him without much convincing. Shiro kisses him once more on the mouth for good measure before sitting back and taking a sip of his coffee. He can’t help but admire his handiwork from over the rim of his mug, Keith’s flushed cheeks and brilliant smile. They drink their coffee in comfortable quiet for a few minutes. It’s easy. Shiro finds his gaze drifting down to Keith’s left hand where it’s resting by his leg on the porch. He looks away before Keith can catch him staring at his empty ring finger. It’s a small moment, for something that’s been creeping into his thoughts so often lately. 

Shiro diverts his train of thought as he catches sight of what looks like part of their shingling thrown out across the distant sand. “We’ll have to run out to the hardware store today,” he says. “Get something to patch up the roof, something temporary until we can get it fixed properly.”

Keith shrugs. “There’s no rush. It’s starting to cool down anyway, so we can stand to turn the air conditioner on low.”

“I’d rather get it patched up as soon as possible,” Shiro insists. “In case it rains or something.”

Keith fixes him with a deadpan look. “Yeah,” he says as he gestures to the barren landscape surrounding them. “In case it rains in the middle of the desert?” he breaks into a laugh at Shiro’s expense. Keith shakes his head. “I think we’re safe there. Don’t worry about it, babe. We can just–” A trill beeping cuts Keith off. It’s faint, coming from inside, but loud enough to notice. Keith frowns, setting his coffee down on the porch before pushing himself up and padding inside.

Shiro doesn’t think anything of it – until Keith is inside for a little too long. He can hear him walking around, and the longer Keith is inside, the more hurried his footsteps become. When Keith emerges after five minutes in the under suit for his Paladin Armour, Shiro immediately puts down his coffee and jumps to his feet. “What’s happening?” he asks in a rush.

Keith is quick to step up to Shiro, placing his hands on his chest to calm him down. “It’s okay,” he says. “Power struggle between three planets in the Tressis System. The Ambassadors of one of the planets called for Voltron before things escalate.”

Shiro nods, back rigid. With the fall of the Galran Empire, a power vacuum had been left behind in entire corners of the known Universe that had known nothing but subjugation for ten thousand years. Struggles like this were a common occurrence now, and Voltron was often called upon for Peace Keeping - more as a mediator than a figure of Authority. “You go ahead, I’ll get the Atlas ready for support–”

“It’s fine, we don’t need it,” Keith cuts him off, only to backpedal when Shiro’s face falls. “Sorry, I didn’t mean we don’t need _you_.”

“I get it,” Shiro recovers, setting his coffee on the windowsill so he can wrap his arms around Keith’s waist.

Still, there’s a guilty twinge in Keith’s brow. “It’s a quick mission. I’ll be back by this afternoon, no need to break out the entire fleet. You can still come along if you want.”

Shiro shakes his head, a genuine smile growing on his lips. “It’s alright. You got this, babe.”

Keith smiles. He smoothes his hands up Shiro’s chest and around his shoulders, pulling him in for a lingering kiss. They never said goodbye when they had to part for missions – it’s was always just a kiss, an unspoken “see you later, come back safe” that said so much more than words could alone.

When Keith steps back, he clicks his tongue to get Kosmo’s attention. The wolf gets up with a long stretch and trots over to his side. “To the Black Lion, buddy,” Keith says as he holds onto the luminescent fur. They vanish in a flash of light that lingers a moment before fading entirely. Shiro exhales slowly, settling into the quiet anxiety that would envelope his chest for the remainder of the day. He takes up his place at the edge of the porch again, one cup of coffee in his hand, and another growing cold at his side.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

Shiro patches up the roof anyway. It’s his day off, and he needs something to keep him busy until Keith comes home. Sitting around waiting is only going to drive him insane, and Shiro’s never been good at staying still anyway (it made him one nightmare of a patient when he’d been ill). So, he takes the hoverbike into town, heading to the hardware store to get what he needs. He doesn’t have the luxury of much space on the bike, and he can’t be bothered to ride all the way out to the Garrison, so he picks up a few planks, nails, and a small sheet of plywood to keep everything sturdy and straps it all to the bike, right behind his seat. After stopping at the grocery store and picking up some lunch, he takes off across the desert again. He spares a glance in the direction of the canyon as he passes, half hoping he’ll see a parting in the clouds and five lions coming down safely. No such luck. He heads home.

The whole day, Shiro keeps his holopad close by, either in his shoulder bag when he heads into town, or within arm’s reach when he’s up on the roof. Keith was right about the weather cooling off, at least. It’s hot, but not unbearable, and even as the sky clears later on in the day Shiro isn’t sweating through his clothes. He nails the plywood to the ceiling inside first, standing on one of the two chairs they have and nearly dropping the nail on his face on the first try. Once he believes it’s relatively sturdy, he drags out the ladder and climbs up onto the roof. To be honest, he doesn’t know if he’s doing this properly, or if the extra sheet is worth it, but he has a game plan and he’s sticking to it.

It’s just past noon when his holopad starts buzzing. The vibrations nearly send it sliding off the shingles, but Shiro manages to put the hammer down and grab it before it can fall off the edge of the roof.

“Captain Shirogane,” he reports as he hit the answer button.

“Shiro,” Iverson’s face appears on the screen, straight backed and stoic with tension in his haw, and Shiro immediately knows that something isn’t right. “We’ve lost contact with Voltron.”

Shiro can feel the blood rushing in his head, that instantaneous fear response kicking in. He’d have taken waking up in a Dust Storm a thousand times over this. “What do you mean? What’s happening?”

“We’re not sure,” Iverson replies. “The last transmission we received detailed that the power struggle was escalating. They haven’t reported in since, and we cannot discern whether it’s a technical failure or hostile activity.”

“I’m on my way now,” Shiro grunts as shifts off the roof toward the ladder, sliding down with on hand on the pole to brace himself and the other still holding the holopad. “Relay any transmissions you get to me until I get there. What was their position by their last report?”

“Kogane reported that they suspected foul play within the governments of each planet. Some kind of set up trying to start all-out war. He was going in on foot to check it out,” Iverson explains.

Shiro bites back a curse as he runs up onto the porch and into the shack. That definitely sounded like something Keith would do and Shiro can’t stand it – not when he isn’t there to watch his back. “I’m twenty minutes out,” Shiro says as he shuts the holopad off and tosses it in the general direction of his shoulder bag. No time for pleasantries or signing off. Shiro doesn’t bother changing into his uniform. He’d like to see anyone try to scold him for it anyway. He quickly changes his shirt and throws on his old leather jacket, grabbing his back before racing out the door. Jumping onto the hoverbike, he throws it into gear, skidding in the sand as it takes off across the desert.

He doesn’t receive any more updates by the time he makes it to the Garrison. He barely slows down as he clears the front gates, pausing only to scan his ID before racing inside. The hoverbike swerves sideways outside the main entrance, and Shiro jumps off before it’s come to a full stop. His anxiety isn’t much better by the time he reaches the control room, pushing through the doors and looking around like he’d half-hopped the team would be back already.

Iverson steps up to receive him, making wise not to comment on the subordinate officer’s disheveled state of dress. “We’ve got the signal reestablished, but nothing’s coming in clear,” he explains as he guides Shiro over to the controls, where a few cadets are working on getting through to Voltron. Static chatter is filling the room, a blank white noise cut up with snippets of voices and mechanical sounds.

“The Blue Lion is amplifying the signal on their end, sir,” one of the cadets report.

Shiro frowns as he looks down at the setting and stats they already have displayed on the control panel’s individual screen before looking back up at the wider screen on the wall. “Why aren’t they using Green?” he asks aloud.

“What do you mean?” the cadet asks.

“The Green Lion has better broadcasting capabilities, and Pidge is our Communications officer,” Shiro replies as he turns his frown back to the controls. Aside from the obvious, something was wrong, and it sank into his gut like gravel. Shiro reached out and typed a new protocol in over the cadet’s shoulder. “If we’re getting signals from the Blue Lion, we need to adjust for it,” he looked down the row at another young cadet. “Change your output for 606 to 668 THz.”

“Terahertz?” she repeated. “But Captain, that’s on the light spectrum.”

“Blue light,” Shiro clarifies. “I know. These lions are ancient, and can’t be explained by science alone. The Blue lion will respond better to frequencies in blue light. Don’t overthink it,” he adds with a smile, a sore attempt at covering his up his nerves.

Regardless of their uncertainty, the cadets do as they’re told, and gradually the signal becomes clearer. Shiro holds his breath as the static dies down. Silence. He steps up to the screen, watching the visual audio program go still. “Princess,” he finally breaks the quiet. “Allura, do you copy?”

The voice is hazy at first, but within second clears to Allura’s voice as the interface on the screen turns a soft blue. “Shiro!” she sighs in audible relief. “Yes, I copy, I’m here.”

Shiro doesn’t even try to mask the way his shoulders drop, the tension draining from his back. “Allura, what happened out there?”

“There’s been a Coup D’état,” she responds. “Keith went down with Hunk to try to deescalate the situation while Lance, Pidge and I give cover from the atmosphere. Pidge took a hit that knocked out the Green Lion’s transmission systems.”

Shiro steps forward, knowing fully well that it won’t do anything to make his voice clearer to her, but moving on instinct regardless. “Is she alright?” he rushes.

“I’m fine,” Pidge replies, the interface glowing emerald with her voice. “Things have quieted down, but we’re not holding our breaths up here.”

Shiro wouldn’t have either – things are rarely ever that easy. “What about Hunk and Keith? Can you patch us into their comms?”

“I can try,” Allura responds. The transmission goes silent, broken up by sparks of intense white noise as Allura works on connecting the Garrison to the individual comms in the Paladin armour. Finally, Allura speaks again. “It should work now. Go ahead, Shiro.”

Shiro forces himself to breathe evenly, swallowing past the dry ache in his throat. “Keith. Hunk. It’s Shiro, report in,” he commands. There’s a slight tremor in his voice, but no one in the control room dares give him so much as a second glance for it.

There’s a slight delay in the audio, a burst of golden yellow glowing on the interface a few seconds before Hunk’s voice actually comes through. “We’re in a bit of a tight spot here,” Hunk replied, voice winded and strained. He cuts out for a moment over a distant explosion that Shiro vaguely recognizes as his bayard’s canon. “ –unus Emperor, so peace talks are pretty much out of the question at this point… tried to… and Keith took a hit… he’s – ” Another, closer blast went off.

Shiro stumbled forward, gripping the back of an empty chair so hard he felt it creak beneath his hand. His eyes were wide, wild, trying to make sense of Hunk’s speech through the distortion and fire fight. “Keith is what? Hunk?” the words are punched straight from his stomach. “Hunk!”

No response. A pin dropping would have sounded more like an atomic bomb in that control room, all eyes shifting between the still audio visualizer and the frantic Captain. The moment the glow of the room turns a deep crimson, shining from the screen above, Shiro feels his knees buckle with the solace it brings.

“I’m here,” Keith responds. He sounds exhausted, his voice rough with pain, but he’s speaking. The sound of fighting in the background is blissfully nonexistent.

“Keith,” Shiro finds himself breathing his name like he’s been holding his breath since the moment he left the shack. “Injury report?”

Keith’s colour shines through the room before his voice comes through. “I’m fine,” he replies, stubborn as anything. It isn’t a direct answer, and Shiro knows him well enough to know he’s deflecting, but he reluctantly lets it go. As much as he wants to speak to Keith, to get the extent of his injuries, to tell him how fucking _scared_ he was, this isn’t the time. They’ve got to be professional, and it’s agony. Keith speaks into the comm again. “We’re returning to the lions. We’ve done all we can on the ground.”

Shiro stays in communication for the remainder of the mission. It’s hard, essentially being grounded while his friends and his _everything_ are out fighting the good fight. Even if he did get the Atlas ready to launch for back up, the fight would be over by the time he got up there. So, he listens to them, talks them through it, offers suggestions when asked, and information when needed. It takes another few hours, and try as he might to wrangle his nerves in, they creep out when the battle gets tense. No one says a word. No one can really blame him.

When all is said and done, the Lions head home. Shiro is outside, watching the sky as it grows heavy with dark grey in the distance, when the Lions break through the clouds and descent toward the Earth.

 

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

 

Shiro takes Keith home. It’s a few hours more spent at the Garisson, of Keith lying in misery in the infirmary while he gets checked over, and of Shiro telling him to stop being so stubborn and giving the nurses a hard time. Three broken ribs are, apparently, something Keith deems just a scratch. Shiro strongly disagrees.

By the time Keith is released on strict bedrest orders, the desert is cooling down and dusk is crawling up from the East. There’s no sunset to speak of. The sky goes dull and dark, and in a way, the lack of brilliant colours painting the horizon is a blessing. It’s calm, and easier on the eyes, and Shiro wouldn’t have been keen on stopping to admire it anyway.

So, he takes Keith home. Kosmo is with them, but Shiro needs to bring the hoverbike back, and he isn’t fond of the idea of Keith being home alone at the moment if he goes ahead. The compromise is that they send Kosmo home, disappearing in that familiar burst of light, while Keith holds onto Shiro’s back and they take it slow, driving back out to the shack.

Sliding off the driver’s seat once the hoverbike comes to a grateful stop, Shiro turns to help Keith down onto to find the other man trying to get down on his own. “Hey, careful,” Shiro says as he hands come up to brace Keith as he slides down.

Keith doesn’t wait for Shiro, but he doesn’t shun off his help. He had one arm wrapped around his torso as he lands on his feet with a wince. “I’ve told you, I’m fine.”

Shiro sighs, slipping his arm around Keith’s waist as he guides him toward the porch. “You are,” he admits as they start walking. “And you have no idea how relieved I am, but baby, you’re still hurt. You’ve got to take it easy, alright?”

Humming under his breath, Keith exhales and nudges his head against Shiro’s shoulder. It’s as much of an agreement as he’s going to get. Shiro takes it. Regardless, whether or not Keith is actually as fine as he says, they take their time getting back inside. Keith’s steps are slow and sluggish, each movement calculated so as not to agitate his ribs. Shiro takes his hand and supports him as he steps up onto the porch, only moving ahead to open the door.

“Y’know,” Keith says with a sly look over his shoulder as he crosses the threshold. “If me getting a bit fucked up on a mission means the return of your leather jacket, it might be worth it.”

Shiro laughs despite himself as he shuts the door behind them. “No need to go to such drastic measures,” he says as he circles his arms around Keith’s waist again, mindful of his injury. “All you had to do was ask nicely.”

Keith smiles, huffing out a short laugh as he shakes his head and drapes his free arm over Shiro’s shoulder. Shiro leans down to kiss him so that Keith doesn’t have to strain himself up to meet him. It’s soft, and easy, and – too short. Keith pulls back with a frown, staring up at the ceiling over Shiro’s head. His frown melts away into an amused quirk of his brow. “You fixed the roof after all?”

Shiro shrugs. “Needed to keep busy, with you out saving the Universe,” he replies, swooping down to kiss Keith’s forehead before bracing his hands on his shoulders and guiding Keith toward the bedroom. “Now, come on. You need some rest.”

Keith leans back on his heels to stop Shiro, jerking his head toward the futon. “Let’s stay in here at least? I want to watch a movie or something.”

As much as Shiro wants to argue, he lets Keith have his way. The bed would be more comfortable, but Keith often needs to keep stimulated after a long battle like today’s. More often than not, they’d go out and race hoverbikes, or push the living room furniture out of the way to do a little sparring, or just fuck until they’re both sated and tired. Since all of their favourite options are out of the question, a movie is the next best thing to help Keith get rid of those last dregs of adrenaline. “Alright, alright, just as long as you rest,” Shiro gives in with a kiss to Keith’s temple.

They pull the blankets out of the bedroom and cozy up on the futon, throwing on an old movie they’ve both seen a million times – and neither of them last more than twenty minutes. Shiro recalls drifting off with Keith laying back against his chest, arms wrapped loosely around him. Keith’s body is solid and warm, his breath gentle as it fans across his neck with every breath. It was a miracle he didn’t fall asleep the moment he’d pulled the blanket around them.

He isn’t sure how much time has passed before he begins to stir. It’s slow, and hazy, and considering that Shiro has always been a light sleeper, an entirely foreign feeling. He is only somewhat aware of the futon shifting, of Keith’s voice whispering in his ear to “Wake up, babe, come on,” of gentle kisses along his jawline coaxing him awake. There is a calm sound surrounding the shack, and in his half asleep state, he thinks of the torturous white noise in the control room. It’s the creak of the door opening that finally has Shiro opening his eyes.

Keith is gone. It’s enough to startle Shiro into complete consciousness as he sits up and looks around the shack. The door has been left open, swaying gently on its hinges. Shiro pushes the covers back, getting up with a long stretch as he pads over to the door to see what’s going on. The cool air is what hits him first, wet and temperate as he steps outside. Keith is standing a few steps off the porch, with his head tilted back and his hand combing through his hair while he holds the other over his ribs.

It’s raining. A steady pour, coating the desert and smudging the line of the horizon like white pastel on a black canvas. Shiro spares a moment just to watch the gentle shower before walking up to the edge of the porch. “Keith,” he calls out. “Baby, come on, you shouldn’t be up.”

When Keith turns, his smile is the most brilliant thing Shiro’s ever laid eyes on. He’s seen planets on the far reaches of the Universe, nebulas of stars and colours that would make grown men weep for their beauty, but the way Keith is beaming at him takes it all without comparison. Shiro is all at once moved to the core and grounded by it. It’s Keith. His Keith.

Shiro can’t help but smile breathlessly. “What’s gotten into you?”

Keith just keeps grinning at him. “Shiro, it’s _raining_ ,” he says as he walks over to the porch and takes Shiro by both hands, pulling him out into the downpour with him. “It’s _raining_ , in the _desert_ , and you _fixed the roof!”_ Keith laughs.

Maybe it’s the impossibility of it all. Maybe the irony. Maybe it’s just them. Shiro isn’t quite sure, but he doesn’t question it. He shakes his head, laughing along with Keith as the rain soaks them to the bone. Until that night, he wasn’t sure if “kissing in the rain” was ever going to be something he’d cross off the list things he wanted to do with Keith, so he sure as hell isn’t missing this opportunity.

Shiro holds Keith and kisses him, still smiling and laughing together like children. As he feels Keith’s left hand cup his cheek, he’s once again reminded of the emptiness of his ring finger. Fixing that will be the next thing on his list.

**Author's Note:**

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